Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.

Tobacco, divine, rare, super excellent tobacco, which goes beyond all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. . . . But, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.

Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste. Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair, And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

Golden Verses So-called because they are "good as gold." They are by some attributed to Epicarmos, and by others to Empedocles, but always go under the name of Pythagoras, and seem quite in accordance with the excellent precepts of that philosopher. They are as follows: Ne'er suffer sleep thine eyes to close Before thy mind hath run O'er every act, and thought, and word, From dawn to set of sun; For wrong take shame, but grateful feel If just thy course hath been; Such effort day by day renewed Will ward thy soul from sin. E. C. B.

The subject of the poem was Bridget of Kildare (450-523), a Christian lass among the Druids in Ireland. Saint Bridget was A problem child. Although a lass Demure and mild, And one who strove To please her dad, Saint Bridget drove The family mad. For here's the fault in Bridget lay: She WOULD give everything away. To any soul Whose luck was out She'd give her bowl Of stirabout; She'd give her shawl, Divide her purse With one or all. And what was worse, When she ran out of things to give She'd borrow from a relative. Her father's gold, Her grandsire's dinner, She'd hand to cold and hungry sinner; Give wine, give meat, No matter whose; Take from her feet The very shoes, And when her shoes had gone to others, Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's. She could not quit. She had to share; Gave bit by bit The silverware, The barnyard geese, The parlor rug, Her little niece-'s christening mug, Even her bed to those in want, And then the mattress of her aunt. An easy touch For poor and lowly, She gave so much And grew so holy That when she died Of years and fame, The countryside Put on her name, And still the Isles of Erin fidget With generous girls named Bride or Bridget. Well, one must love her. Nonetheless, In thinking of her Givingness, There's no denial She must have been A sort of trial Unto her kin. The moral, too, seems rather quaint. WHO had the patience of a saint, From evidence presented here? Saint Bridget? Or her near and dear?

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.